


The Other Death

by Repeatinglitanies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood and Gore, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Moral Ambiguity, not even their bodies are minors though Vanya could pass for one because of her height, the characters are not minors in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:54:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27281512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repeatinglitanies/pseuds/Repeatinglitanies
Summary: Fiveya Week Day 6 Prompt:  Endings / BeginningsFive knew she should have let her be. But he had shadowed Vanya’s steps too long to give up on her.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43
Collections: fiveya week (round 2)





	The Other Death

Five knew he should have let her be, that he should have left Vanya, who would no doubt have truly died without him. Perhaps then, she could at least find peace. But he had shadowed, more like haunted, Vanya’s steps for too long to give up on her. Had worked so very diligently in order to obtain his maker’s blessing. The one thing he truly needed to be with Vanya and make her his.

Besides, he had never been a good man, if anyone could truly call him a man. Had Five ever been one prior to his turning, prior to his awakening to his new existence, there was truly no way to know.

Vampires were far too familiar with death, in all its forms. It was common knowledge that a mortal had to die in order to receive the dubious gift of a vampire’s power and immortality. But what most living, breathing humans did not know was that the process of the Turning required more than the death of the human body. 

Some (his brethren more fascinated with the scientific method) have theorized that the transformation so traumatised the mind that it completely erased the memory of the life once lived. But the more spiritually inclined contended that the newly awakened creature was completely divorced from the human that once owned its vessel and its old life, that it was essentially a new being.

Whatever the case may be (Five didn’t care either way) nothing ever returned a vampire’s memory once it is forgotten. Not prized possessions, not recordings and photographs, not even loved ones that still remembered the vampire’s past life. For all intents and purposes, the vampire unburdened by its past was akin to a human whose memories have been hollowed out. If not a new creature altogether.

And the same will be true for Vanya when she awakens to her new life. 

It so pained him to have to play the role of a procurer just in order to provide her with food. But it was terribly easy to lure the man behind him with the promise of a girl that looked youthful enough to be a teenager. This was the type of man so deep into his appetites for young girls that he would readily ignore the strangeness that surrounded Vanya’s room.

Strangeness such as why the girl was in a coffin and why she was covered in dirt (it was in fact the soil of her previous life’s home) and why she didn’t appear to be breathing.

All the food cared about was that a beautiful, naked young woman was within his reach. And that he could do anything he wanted with her. A fallacy that Five intentionally led him to believe until the time the prey came close enough to Vanya for her to sense Five’s offering of sustenance.

The food didn’t even have the chance to scream when Vanya’s hunger struck to awaken her and feed herself. Five was amazed to witness Vanya’s newfound strength and power. When he first awoke, he hadn’t managed to decapitate his food in one go. Vanya would prove to be more powerful than him, which means that she was even more powerful than his own maker.

She looked marvellous with her pale white skin covered in blood.

He wanted to approach her, lick the blood off her lips, spread her legs and…

But it was far too soon. Vanya was in the midst of the hunger. And it was simply bad etiquette to interrupt someone else’s meal. The scraps he remembered about his first meal had him baring his teeth at his maker when she had tried to approach him while he wasn’t yet satiated.

And yet, this was a tricky situation. When her hunger subsided, human rationale would come back. She would be horrified at what she had done though she would not know why she felt that way, just as she would have no idea who she was and what she was doing there.

If he could, he would have spared her of this. Discovering the side-effects of vampirism and ignoring the eternal hunger had fueled his nightmares in the first few years of his awakening. But with time and age, Five had come to accept that this was the only way vampires would be able to accept how different they were from mortals, no matter how much vampires resembled them in appearance and the ability to reason. It was better to shatter illusions of a normal life surrounded by humans as early as possible.

And as expected, he heard a scream of horror. Her scream of horror.

To his surprise, he felt a part of himself break just a little for the pain he had caused her. It was simply part of being the undead, never truly dead enough to be beyond earthly care but never truly alive enough to actively do anything about changing the remnants of the human condition. 

Nothing could undo Vanya’s horror. Vanya would remember this day for as long as time allowed her existence. Thankfully, time also had a way of numbing the pain. 

The important thing is that she was now awake. So he took off his coat to cover her nudity and coaxed her into allowing him to bathe her.

__________________

“Did I know you before I turned?”

As with most of his encounters with Vanya so far, her questions elicited bittersweet feelings of déjà vu. He had asked the same question of his maker when he got over his suspicion of her. Perhaps it was only natural for all fledgling vampires to ask that of all their makers. But who knows? Five never had to deal with newly turned vampires before. 

Such creatures were considered no more than infants and were kept inside for fear that they’d be killed off by other vampires before their maker could put them to good use.

“One day, I’ll tell you.”

How he hated it when his maker gave the same reply. But time had a way of changing one’s perspective. And now he understood her a little bit more. 

Five could tell from the look on Vanya’s face that she didn’t like his answer any more than he did when he was in her place.

But he hoped that in time, she too would know why this was for the best.

________________

“I don’t want to, Five. I don’t want any of them touching me.”

He didn’t like the thought of anyone feeling Vanya up, kissing her lips, or holding her hips either. But she needed to learn how to hunt by herself. As much as he wanted her with him always, he did not have the ability of omnipresence to allow him to aid her whenever she needed it. So it was important for her to learn how to survive on her own, should the opportunity arise.

The least conspicuous way was through seduction. Humans could barely tell the difference between a vampire’s bite and an orgasm. Though some had said their bite was miles better than a human orgasm. Match it with every vampire’s ability to distort memories, and their victims wake up to see another day, albeit with hazy memories of what they believe had been too much alcohol and sex. And a subconscious need to consume more fluids and iron supplements.

It was the preferred way of hunting these days. With the explosion of modern technology, it just wasn’t worth it to be at the center of a police investigation especially when one cannot give a rational explanation for why one can’t walk in the daylight. And no one wanted to go back to the days of overzealous vampire hunters.

Of course, that didn’t stop some of his brethren from drinking from the tap until it dried up. But as long as it was discreet, a once in a blue moon occurrence with the body well disposed of, the vampire council wasn’t going to make a fuss.

Which meant that they couldn’t afford to leave a vampire hungry. And risk it going mindless in its thirst for blood in the presence of multiple hands holding smartphones.

“If you have a better idea of how to source your food, I’m open to suggestions. But if not, I advise you to start choosing a target.”

“Feed me, then.”

“You know that you can’t gain sustenance from feeding on another vampire, Vanya.”

“No. I mean, feed me like you did the first time you taught me to hunt.”

That little minx. Five could see the desire in her eyes. She wanted his attention. That. And more. The first time he showed her how to hunt, she had been horrified, refusing to even lick a drop of blood from their food. So Five was forced to take a sip and feed her himself, as if he was a mother bird feeding her young ones. 

That might have been the wrong decision. Because Vanya would try to come up with excuse after excuse not to hunt for herself. 

Had it been anyone else, Five would have left them in exasperation. But he couldn’t truly blame her. He was the same way with his maker when he had newly awoken. In her place, he had refused to hunt not because he was wary of it or had anything against hunting humans. But simply because he wanted an excuse to be near his maker. To have her lips on his and her body near enough to touch, if she allowed it.

Vanya was the same way. Ever since her awakening, she wanted to be near him always, preferring to sit on his lap and snuggle up to him on his bed. She was lusting after him the same way he had lusted after his maker.

His maker once told him that vampires lived (if one can call their existence living) in cycles. And seeing Vanya relive echoes of his own past, he couldn’t help thinking that was true.

“What do you truly want, Vanya?”

He had initially thought of Vanya as a timid little thing when he first witnessed her horror at tearing a man’s head from his body. But now, after months of living with him, she must have found a new confidence. He wondered if a part of her old life still remained in her, if she hadn’t truly forgotten everything.

Sadly, he couldn’t say the same of himself.

“I want you to fill me. Not with blood. But with you.”

Her words sent a rush of blood to his groin. It was certainly tempting. He had wanted her for so long. But no. It wouldn’t do to lose control. 

“Not until you learn how to hunt properly. Now go,” he said as he pointed at the direction of the club, filled with dancers looking for a night of all kinds of indulgences. Five was proud that he had kept himself calm after her bold proposition. Though it would be a lie to say he wasn’t disappointed at having to deny her.

She looked so adorable when she pouted. But in the end, she obediently made her way towards the intended destination.

His maker did the same thing too when he suggested filling her with himself. Well, almost the same. To be more accurate, she hit him enough to spill blood, making him even more hungry in the process. Giving him no choice but to hunt for himself.

He supposed a few differences in the cycle was to be allowed. Vanya and he were two different people.

Even if he couldn’t truly say the same of Vanya and his maker.

Because was it not his maker’s body that Vanya was inhabiting? 

Most vampires only know of the death of mortal life and the final death wherein they become nothing more than dust. But only a few knew of the death that came periodically between the two. If they manage to exist long enough, and if they have a trusted vampire at their side, they would find out about the other death. 

One in which they undergo a long period of hibernation that accompanies another transformation, making them even more powerful than before. But at the cost of forgetting the life they had lived before, whether human or vampire.

Vanya was his maker in her old life. Or at least, Five had believed her to be his maker. At some point, they had forgotten who truly inducted the other to the life of the undead. And like him, the Vanya of old had contemplated putting an end to this cycle of endings and beginnings. 

What was the point of being together when one couldn’t remember the other? Wasn’t their continued unremembering existence a form of suffering inflicted upon the one left with all the memories? Were they even truly living with the same creature they had once loved? Or was the person that awoke from the transformation actually a new creature altogether?

No one could provide a definitive answer. Five had tried to find out to no avail.

And yet, even with all that uncertainty, they never do decide to end it.

So when the time comes for Five to undergo another transformation, it would be this Vanya’s turn to place him in the coffin and cover him in the soil of their shared home. That is, if Vanya decided to continue with this.

But if her current actions were any indication. She might just do what her predecessor did so many times before. As he followed his predecessor countless other times.

It was now up to the current Vanya. Because to Five, all that mattered was that they were together. And he didn’t care whether he simply forgot or was gone forever to be replaced by a new creature.


End file.
